Pages

8 April 2015

Bad dogs!

The dogs come later, but let me start with colour, and our perception of it, which has always been of interest to me. I currently teach two students with extreme red/green colourblindness, one of whom also has trouble with shades of brown. Strange, but that's more of an aside than anything else.

Perhaps, as would seem appropriate for such a post, I should illustrate my point. Which of these looks "right"?

Unless you're deliberately perverse, or a keen sensation seeker (in which case, beware the blandishments of Slaanesh!), you'll have picked the red one. Which is the one on the right for those of you who are colourblind or are watching in black and white. I guess my point is that we are so used to particular colours being associated with certain plants, fruits, creatures, natural phenomena etc. that any radical departure from that, even when the form is retained, seems freakish or dangerous. Witness the cruelty that has been inflicted on albinos over time.

Sticking with toy soldiers, rather than social commentary, colour can be used to similar effect. Ordinary creatures can be given a sense of the monstrous by painting them in an unexpected colour. Even monsters can be made more... monstrous? unnerving? ... by varying their expected skin or fur tones. Dale Hurst did this in his classic Tzeentch warband with the minotaur. Even without the wings, painting it with zebra stripes is sufficiently outwith the expected to catch the eye.

I think I originally downloaded this from Orlygg's blog

So, why this post today? Mainly because I thought I'd give it a go, but the idea of skin tones was already fairly close to uppermost in my (geeking) mind from playing with different shades for the goblin archers I showed earlier this week and their comrades who I'll share soon. Like Dale, of all the chaos themes in the Warhammer world, I'm most drawn to Tzeentch so I've combined all the blether from above to paint up my first two chaos hounds. In lurid colours, naturally!

The bad dogs of the post title...

... these two would rather eat you than play fetch

These are hyenas from the £1 cabinet at Foundry that I picked up at BOYL last year (won't be going this year as it clashes with my wedding anniversary, drat!). Fur drybrushed in shades of grey, skin painted in Foundry triads - Bright Blue and Nipple Pink respectively, then washed all over with GW washes (Asurmen Blue and Leviathan Purple). For a first attempt I'm content with them, particularly the purple one which I did second, and it's given me ideas for future hounds and experiments with unusual colours. They also take me up to nine miniatures painted this holiday!

I had thought about this idea for chaos thugs or humans that still look normal, except for weird skin and hair coloration. The problem is I've been too wishy washy to actually do it. Do I tint flesh paints, just use the colors straight? Just my usual over thinking.

I used the colours straight, but tried to apply them as if they were flesh tones with the same highlighting and so on. For human (well, nearly human!) weird skin I think I'd take the colour I wanted and add increasing amounts of a pale flesh colour to highlight. Just go for it! Worst that can happen is you have to dunk it and start again :)

About Me

The escapist hobby of my teenage years has resurfaced as a way for my adult self to relax and be creative after all the important parts of my day have been addressed. Nostalgia for the simplicity of my youth is undoubtedly a part of it!